2) Be creative with the agenda.

Avoid a dry recital of figures, and instead humanize your discussions by giving the board insight to what the agency is really accomplishing out in the world.

For a more radical approach, occasionally throw out the agenda altogether!

Let the board create its own order of business by consensus at the beginning of the meeting.

That way everyone is immediately paying more attention to the work that needs to get accomplished in the meeting.

They are not just meeting for routine reporting and discussing; action needs to be taken on real issues now.

3) Focus on problems, challenges, or broad issues.

Discussions of this nature will activate your board members’ various backgrounds and skills sets, not to mention their interest.

It will allow you to draw upon a deeper reservoir of their talent and energy, and will give them more interesting work.

4) Look at trends within routine reports.

Identify larger, big-picture issues that are reflected within routine reports. For example, along with the financial report, consider a discussion of long-run implications of certain revenue or cost trends.

What are three important questions anyone might want to ask about this month’s financial report? Identify these questions yourself and introduce them to the board as discussion topics.

Also, along with the regular fundraising report, you could schedule a big-picture discussion of the pros and cons of a subject, such as fundraising events, which we know to be high cost and effort while providing a lower financial return than cultivating major donors.

Or you might have the board brainstorm ways to double the funds raised from the annual event. (Wouldn’t you love to hear your board grapple with that one?)

5) Plan big.

For example, you could take the standard strategic planning issues focusing on organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis).

Divide the four subjects over four board meetings and at each meeting, take your board through a discussion or update of one of these issues.

6) Look at your board meetings as cheerleading sessions.

Get ready to fire up your board members and put them into action.

For these meetings, switch your view to seeing the board as the team that is out on the field, with the role of the staff being there to encourage and congratulate them: How would you stage such a session?

Identify who would need to speak in order to rev up the energy of your board.

7) Use consent agendas.

Why devote valuable meeting time to routine business items that do not require much board discussion?

A list of items can be mailed out in advance and approved in one vote.

Any member can ask that a consent agenda item be moved back into the regular agenda for discussion.

Try handling committee reports in this manner by providing written reports in the place of lengthy oral reports.

8) Interview the Executive Director.

Occasionally consider allowing time for the board members to interview the executive director about what is on his/her mind.

What keeps the director up at night?

How about a relaxed “fireside chat” with him or her for about 10 minutes at each meeting? What an interesting discussion this could be and how engaging for board members.

9) Always choose one interesting item and set it up for a discussion.

If you are nervous about turning your board loose and are not sure where the discussion might go, then let a couple of trusted board members know in advance about the planned discussion.

Tell them your perspective and what you need from the board’s conversation on this issue.

10) Select a theme for each meeting.

Follow the advice of the Alliance for Peacebuilding CEO, Chic Dambach, who likes to select a theme for each meeting based a particular need or issue facing the organization.

He says, “This allows ample time for in-depth analysis of that topic.

For particularly important issues, the theme can be repeated over the course of several meetings until the issue has been adequately addressed.”

11) Create “mission moments” in every board meeting.

Give your trustees a personal experience of your mission in action.

Use a testimonial or a story about someone touched by your organization. This could be the most powerful subject of the entire meeting.

12) Break into groups.

Instead of reporting to board members about an upcoming challenge, present the issue as a question and ask them to discuss it in small groups.

Then the board chair can facilitate the full group discussion afterwards.

Having small groups enables everyone to speak, encouraging shy people, those who typically avoid speaking to the full board, to participate.

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I normally adopt tip number 1: when I sit with a board, the first thing I usually say are the goals we have to reach by the end of the meeting. It’s a useful way to explain subjects and plan the meeting, and in my experience connecting goals and timing is among the better ways to succeed.

I appreciated tip number 8: it’s something I consider quite difficult in some NGOs, especially those with a formal leadership. Nonetheless, giving board members the opportunity to ask certain things to their Director in a “public” and shared way could be really important to prevent potential misunderstandings. I’ve taken note about this thing for my next board session (next Thursday).
Thanks for your tips!
Simona

http://www.facebook.com/gailperry.nc Gail Perry

Hi Simona! Love it that you are all over tip #1 – so very many meetings DON”T start out that way.
Let me know how you do with the Fireside Chat! I’d love to hear!
Gail

http://www.facebook.com/toddlowe Todd Lowe

Gail, it’s a constant challenge to keep board members engaged – if even for an hour. This topic is one I think about all the time. Thanks for the post.

This past year, we started focusing our Board meetings around a report-out on our strategic plan (by the way, we literally started our strategic planning process with the question “What keeps each of us up at night?”). Asking each vision priority chair to review a bulleted synopsis of progress at Board meetings keeps us focused on results/accountability and has built-in cheerleading because we all pat each other on the back for our progress. : ) It also keeps everyone in the loop on big-picture issues that might affect future plans. We try to start with a mission moment each meeting, as well.

gailperry

Thanks Todd – I think we need an all-out strategy to keep these meetings worth attending!

gailperry

Way to go! I like the built-in cheerleading. You need to turn board meetings into experiences that raise up energy rather than deplete it!

Connect:

Thanks so much for a great retreat and leaving us with so much new momentum to go out and raise funds for GBMC. You did an outstanding job.

— Doug Smith

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Gail Perry, MBA, CFRE

Gail Perry is a leader in a new breed of fundraisers. She is the best-selling author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Board Passion into Action (Wiley). Her Fired-Up Fundraising approach, developed over the past 22 years as a non-profit philanthropy expert, has helped organizations raise hundreds of millions in gifts and support.